


never ever let it cool

by Nokomis



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Prompt Fic, Stakeout hangout, brothers being brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 20:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20552150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: Jason and Dick get into a tussle over hot chocolate. (No, really.)





	never ever let it cool

**Author's Note:**

> For merfilly, for the microfic prompt: jason and dick, sharing a drink. [Originally posted on tumblr.](https://nokomiss.tumblr.com/post/187554795882/e-sharing-a-drink-jason-and-dick)

“Goddamn, it’s cold,” Jason grumbled to himself, shifting his weight as he crouched on the rooftop. Stakeouts were boring as hell under prime weather conditions, but Gotham winters made them outright miserable. 

“At least nowadays we have pants.” 

Jason steeled his shoulders, not willing to let Dick know he’d managed to sneak up on him. And with a lame joke about the damn uniform that _he_ had designed. The gall. Jason was honestly disappointed in him. He turned to inform Dick of such, but to-go cup in Dick’s hands stole his attention. Jason stared at the steam wafting gently out of the lid and what came out was, “Gimme.”

“Nuh-uh.” Dick cradled the cup gently in his hands. It was so cold out that Jason could almost feel the warmth of the cup from here.

“You could have asked if I wanted something.” 

Dick’s cheeks turned faintly red, and Jason pointed at him accusingly. “Did the old lady on seventeenth street make you hot chocolate again?”

“It’s so good, Jason, I can’t turn it down,” Dick said, like he didn’t specifically and visibly patrol near that lady’s apartment in the cold months for the hot chocolate, which somehow surpassed even Alfred’s. Rich and creamy and with the perfect amounts of chili and cinnamon… Jason had to have some. He was so cold, he could barely feel his toes, and Dick was holding out on him.

He tried a new tactic. “Just a sip.”

“Get your own.” Dick took a sip of his own, and Jason glared. Dick was still rosy-cheeked and clearly hadn’t been sitting on a frigid rooftop for four damn hours. Dick knew perfectly well that no place in Gotham had better hot chocolate than that lady, and Dick also knew that she wasn’t nearly as charmed by Red Hood.

Though to be fair, he’d never truly _tried_. She’d given him a cup exactly one time, but he’d been patrolling with Dick at the time and had been bleeding slightly from the head, and she’d taken pity on him. Maybe he could work that angle again.

Jason very briefly considered taking off and attempting to cajole the lady into making him some, now that Dick was here to take over stakeout duties, but to his supreme annoyance, after literally four hours of radio silence, a lone black SUV pulled slowly up to the warehouse in question. 

They both stared down in annoyance at the SUV.

Dick, by virtue of years of crime-fighting experience as well as being familiar with Jason’s tactics, immediately saw his dilemma and attempted to guzzle down the drink. He was forced to do so in short bursts, face making it clear that the drink was still too hot to do anything more than sip.

Jason decided that a take-no-prisoners approach was the only possible solution, and plowed into Dick shoulder-first, trying (and failing) to knock him off-balance before going in for the kill-- a well-aimed jab into the armpit of the arm holding the cup, turning it into a merciless tickle.

“Cheater!” Dick gasped out with a strangled burst of laughter, arm dropping involuntarily enough for Jason to make a move for the cup. Rather than trying to remove it from Dick’s grasp altogether and risk spilling it everywhere, he just aimed it towards his mouth, and was rewarded with a burning mouthful of hot chocolate.

The bliss was temporary, of course, as Dick was equally well-armed with knowledge of Jason’s ticklish spots. He went directly for the spot just behind Jason’s knee, and the hot chocolate nearly ended up splattered across the rooftop in the ensuing scuffle. 

Somehow -- as though it were the Olympic torch -- the hot chocolate survived, held aloft in both their hands as they struggled to be the one to get the next sip. Barely a minute later, the cup was empty, and the stakeout belatedly remembered. 

They both peered over the edge of the rooftop, but the SUV had disappeared. 

“Crap.” Dick made a face. “You gonna call this one in?”

“Not on your life,” Jason said. The hot chocolate had warmed him enough that he remembered his pride. Calling it in would inevitably result in the entire family watching a replay of their scuffle. “Probably we could just look into the security footage?”

“And pretend like we totally saw where they went and what happened?” 

“It’s a plan,” Jason said, offering his fist to bump. The wind didn’t feel quite as bitterly cold now as they took off, taking a cursory look around the warehouse (empty) before moving on to chasing down the footage to show where the SUV had gone. 

The takedown went smoothly, if somewhat strangely less satisfying than the brotherly scuffle from the rooftop, which Jason attributed more to the hot chocolate and less to the sense of _belonging_ that it inspired. 

When he got home later that night, dropping his gear carelessly on the couch, he quickly realized someone had been there. Sitting on his kitchen table was a steel tumbler of still-warm hot chocolate, with a note sitting beneath it saying “Be better prepared next time” in a familiar heavy scrawl. 

Jason felt obscurely like he should be embarrassed at Bruce witnessing him and Dick act like morons, but honestly, Bruce had seen way worse out of him. He sent back a message, _thanks for a cup that can do some damage._

(And if he sent Dick a picture of the cup with a pointed message about B finding replacements for things that both better and more badass -- well. At least Dick’s response of a picture of Damian with whipped cream on his nose made him laugh.)


End file.
